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'Something Is Wrong with Our Army…' Command, Leadership & Italian Journal of Military and Strategic VOLUME 14, ISSUE 1, FALL 2011 Studies ‘Something is wrong with our army…’ Command, Leadership & Italian Military Failure in the First Libyan Campaign, 1940-41. Dr. Craig Stockings There is no question that the First Libyan Campaign of 1940-41 was an Italian military disaster of the highest order. Within hours of Mussolini’s declaration of war British troops began launching a series of very successful raids by air, sea and land in the North African theatre. Despite such early setbacks a long-anticipated Italian invasion of Egypt began on 13 September 1940. After three days of ponderous and costly advance, elements of the Italian 10th Army halted 95 kilometres into Egyptian territory and dug into a series of fortified camps southwest of the small coastal village of Sidi Barrani. From 9-11 December, these camps were attacked by Western Desert Force (WDF) in the opening stages of Operation Compass – the British counter-offensive against the Italian invasion. Italian troops not killed or captured in the rout that followed began a desperate and disjointed withdrawal back over the Libyan border, with the British in pursuit. The next significant engagement of the campaign was at the port-village Bardia, 30 kilometres inside Libya, in the first week of 1941. There the Australian 6 Division, having recently replaced 4 Indian Division as the infantry component of WDF (now renamed 13 Corps), broke the Italian fortress and its 40,000 defenders with few casualties. The feat was repeated at the port of Tobruk, deeper into Libya, when another 27,000 Italian prisoners were taken. After further success at Derna, 6 Division entered Benghazi on 7 February 1941, while 7 Armoured Division blocked and destroyed the remnants of the 10th Army trying to flee Cyrenaica at Beda Fomm. ©Centre of Military and Strategic Studies, 2011 ISSN : 1488-559X JOURNAL OF MILITARY AND STRATEGIC STUDIES The campaign was over. After ten weeks, 13 Corps had advanced 800 km, destroyed or captured about 400 tanks and around 1,300 artillery pieces, and captured 130,000 Italian prisoners (including 22 generals), along with a vast quantity of war material. This was accomplished at a cost of only 494 killed. It was a distinctly one-sided affair. The question, however, is why? For all of the ethnic slurs and cultural stereotyping levelled at Italian military performance in North Africa by historians and popular authors, the last 70 years has seen relatively little research effort invested into identifying the real military disadvantages under which Mussolini’s soldiers in this theatre fought. Notable exceptions in this regard include the work of historians like MacGregor Knox and James Sadkovich. Even these authors, however, along with the biographers and political historians of the Fascist regime at war, have tended to focus their attention at a strategic and institutional level. This paper takes an opposite approach by looking from the bottom up rather than from the top down. More specifically, it will attempt to help contextualise poor Italian battlefield performance in the First Libyan Campaign. Contrary to a dominant but misguided tradition, explanations based on ethnicity or ‘national character’ are not required. The old tune that somewhere – somehow – Italian military culture was to blame, is insufficient. Rather, the rout of the 10th Army is best understood as a consequence of clear, measurable, objective, military factors. In this regard, a comparative analysis, on a tactical and operational level, especially of the key issue of command and leadership, forms a far more objective base upon which to build an understanding of Italian military failure in Libya. In making such comparisons, from an Allied perspective, I will focus specifically on 6 Division, as this formation was much closer in form and structure to its Italian counterparts than was 7 Armoured Division. Let us be clear from the outset. In terms of command function, the Australians enjoyed a clear and significant advantage which had a material effect on the outcome of the campaign. Italian leadership at all levels in North Africa was exposed as faulty compared to their adversaries and this mismatch was an important influence on the battlefield. At the same time, as we shall see, there were reasons behind it, or an 2 | P a g e VOLUME 14, ISSUE 1, FALL 2011 explanation of it, which had little to do with innate Italian ethnicity or “military culture”.1 Well before the outbreak of war in North Africa, Italian strategic-level leadership had already shown itself to be fundamentally flawed. From the very top the sudden, rash and grand speculations of what Douglas Porch called Mussolini’s “strategic attention deficit disorder”, and subsequent entry into the war with all the “spectacular but uncontrolled trajectory of a bottle rocket”, set the scene for future problems.2 The Mediterranean could, and always should, have been the centre of gravity for the Italian military effort, but in 1940–41 Mussolini quickly diluted what strength Italy possessed by multiple commitments in France, East Africa, the Battle of Britain, in preparations to attack southern Switzerland, and for a massive proposed drive on Yugoslavia. This did not include subsequent misadventures in Greece or naval commitments to the Battle of the Atlantic. Mussolini’s constant vacillation, scatter-gun approach to campaign planning, and vague platitudes that the British were no longer “the stuff of Sir Francis Drake” revealed a remarkable level of strategic ineptitude at the most senior level.3 Lacking Mussolini’s faith or trust, and generally kept as uninformed as the Germans about his strategic intentions, senior Italian officers quickly proved themselves incapable of high-level command. They were, as a group, too often over-age and lacking in physical robustness, initiative, self-confidence, professional curiosity and basic competence. They did not know the true military capability of their army and proved difficult to shake into reform, even by failure. Even after 1940, the army tended not to remove incompetents, as it had done in the previous war. A system of rewarding Fascist fervour, patronage, social connection and favour saw commanders who actually fled from battle redeployed to high command. At the same time rivals were often cut down for non-military reasons. Mistrust, rivalry, personal feuding and intrigue abounded. With the exception of those killed or captured, the overwhelming majority of incompetent senior Italian commanders who began the war finished it in the same or higher positions. In December 1940, WDF Headquarters specifically identified the fact that four senior 1 Very little academic or analytical work has been done in English on the factors behind ineffective Italian leadership at all levels of command. What has been produced is generally descriptive and narrative. Authors seem to have a good understanding of the problems but far less as to what was behind them. Far more work is yet to be done. 2 D. Porch, Hitler’s Mediterranean Gamble: the North African and the Mediterranean Campaigns in World War II (Cassell: London, 2005), pp. 71 & 72. 3 ‘Axis Plans and Operations in the Mediterranean, September 1939–February 1941’, Enemy Documents Section, Historical Branch, Cabinet Office, March 1950, The National Archives (UK) (TNA), CAB146/1; Knox, M., Hitler’s Italian Allies: Royal Armed Forces, Fascist Regime, and the War of 1940–1943 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 73–78. 3 | P a g e JOURNAL OF MILITARY AND STRATEGIC STUDIES Italian officers in North Africa held command as a political reward – not as a consequence tactical acumen or proven ability.4 Throughout the war high-level promotion in the Italian Army remained based on seniority, not combat proficiency. As late as September 1942, Marshal Ugo Cavallero, Chief of the Supreme General Staff, had to direct that general officer replacements be considered ‘proficient’ rather than be automatically selected from the most senior (on paper) candidates.5 Serious personal friction within the senior Italian officer corps also had real operational implications in North Africa. At the highest level Mussolini, apprehensive of the popularity of the Chief of the Italian Supreme General Staff, Marshal Pietro Badoglio, actively undercut his authority and in December 1940 forced his resignation as the scapegoat for failure in Albania and Greece. His replacement by Marshal Ugo Cavallero, considered unjust by the wider senior officer corps, increased dissatisfaction within the armed forces.6 It also effectively removed any chance of unified or centralised tri-service command. For his part, before he was removed Badoglio had consistently sought to undermine Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, the most senior Italian general and in overall command in North Africa. At the same time General Ubaldo Soddu, Badoglio’s deputy, plotted his superior’s downfall while feuding with Major General Giacomo Carboni of military intelligence.7 Soddu went on to scheme against and supplant General Sebastiano Prasca, commander of Italian forces in Albania, and was derided by Count 4 In 1940 there were Italian colonels aged in their early 50s, divisional commanders in their late 50s and higher commanders in their 60s. ‘Bardia: Account of Operations of 13 Corps, December 1940–January 1941’, TNA, CAB106/383; A. Kesselring , ‘Italy as a Military Ally’, D.S. Detwiler, (et al.), World War II German Military Studies: A Collection of 213 Special Reports on the Second World War prepared by Former Officers of the Wehrmacht for the United States Army, Vol. 14 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1979), p. 13; Knox, Hitler’s Italian Allies, pp. 29 & 119–20; Knox, ‘Expansionist zeal, fighting power and staying power in the Italian and German dictatorships’, R. Bessel, (ed.), Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 126. 5 Knox, Hitler’s Italian Allies, p. 121.
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